EFF denies split

The EFF on Tuesday denied media reports that the party was in trouble with a split on the cards.

"The Economic Freedom Fighters dismisses claims reported in several media outlets that the emergence of general unions means EFF has split," spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said in a statement.

"These are malicious reports raising false alarms and distorting the truth."

Ndlozi said the people who formed a trade union in its name had misled the public since there was no resolution of the EFF to form a trade union.

"The EFF is an organisation with processes and procedures that allow it to function and take decisions. It cannot be held at ransom by impatient people who even go to the extent of misleading the public by feeding it wrong information in its name," he said.

The Times reported that interim general secretary of the National Trade Union Congress Eddie Mothiba was suspended. The paper reported that EFF members formed the union last month but leader Julius Malema had distanced the party from it.

The EFF's Tshwane region convener, and Gauteng MPL Benjamin Disolwane, told Mothiba that he was suspended from membership and barred from EFF activities at a meeting in Pretoria on Saturday, according to the Times article.

Ndlozi said there was a need for the rise of a radical left trade union federation movement that would genuinely fight for workers' rights.

"All revolutionaries have come to this conclusion many times before, but some have immaturely taken it upon themselves to start these movements, only to collapse and fail workers."

He said the party would not be forming a union but rather prioritising the consolidation of its organisational structures in order to become a vanguard of the working class.

He said the party would not stop people from joining unions of their choice.

"However, EFF is unapologetic of its support of Amcu [Association of Mine workers and Construction Union] in the mining industry, its support of the demand by Numsa for a living wage and appreciation of Nactu's [National Council of Trade Unions] endorsement during 2014 general elections," he said.